‘Not care for her! I shall worship her as long as I have breath in my body. But I have resigned myself to the idea that somebody else is going to marry her—that the most I can ever be to her is a good, useful, humdrum kind of friend, who will be godfather to one of her boys by-and-by; ready to ride helter-skelter for the doctor if any of her children show symptoms of measles or whooping-cough; glad to take dummy of an evening when she and her husband want to play whist; or to entertain the boys at Hawksyard for their summer holidays while she and he are enjoying a _tête-à-tête_ ramble in the Engadine. That is the sort of man I shall be.’ ‘How good you are!’ said Daphne, slipping her hand through his arm with an affectionate impulse. ‘Ah, my little Daphne, it will be your turn to full in love some of these days; put it off as long as you can, dear, for there’s more pain than pleasure in it at best.’ Daphne gave an involuntary sigh. ‘And then I hope you’ll confide in me just as freely as I have confided in you. I may be useful as an adviser, you know, having had my own troubles.’ ‘You could only advise me to be patient, and give up all hope,’ said Daphne, drawing her hand from his arm. ‘What would be the good of such advice? But I shall never trouble you. I am not going to fall in love—ever.’ She gave the last word an almost angry emphasis. ‘Poor little Daphne! as if you could know anything about it,’ exclaimed Edgar, smiling incredulously at her. ‘That kind of thing comes upon one unawares. You talk as if you could choose whether you would fall in love or not—like Hercules between his two roads, deliberating whether he should go to the right or the left. Ah, my dear, when we come to that stage of our journey there is but one road for us: and whether it lead to the Garden of Eden or the Slough of Despond, we must travel over it.’ ‘You are getting poetical,’ exclaimed Daphne scornfully; ‘I didn’t know that was in your line. But please tell me about Gerald. I have never seen him, you know. He was always at Oxford, or roaming about the world somewhere, when I was at home for the holidays. I have been at home so little, you see,’ she interjected with a piteous air. ‘I used to hear a great deal about a very wonderful personage, enormously rich, fabulously clever, and accomplished, and handsome; and I grew rather to hate him, as one is apt to hate such perfection; and then one day I got a letter from Lina—a letter brimming over with happiness—to say that she and this demigod were engaged to be married, but it was to be a long engagement, because the other demigod—my father—wished for delay. So you see I know very little about my future brother.’